get current users path variable without system path using cmd

Question

When I'm logged in with my standard user (which is also an admin) the command echo %PATH% returns system's path + user's path. How can I get the user's path only?

E.g. when my current user's path is C:\ruby;C:\java\bin and system's path is %SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot% the command above returns %SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;C:\ruby;C:\java\bin but I only want to have C:\ruby;C:\java\bin in order to be able to append to user's path permanently without system's path trash included.

My goal is to append a directory to the path variable. I tried to do this with the command setx PATH %PATH%;C:\ruby\bin which ruined my path variable because of the system's path.

Answer 1

Another way using PowerShell.

(Get-ItemProperty HKCU:\Environment).PATH

Or, from a cmd.exe shell.

powershell -NoProfile -Command "(Get-ItemProperty HKCU:\Environment).PATH"

In order to retrieve the variable without interpolation.

(Get-Item -Path HKCU:\Environment).GetValue('PATH', $null, 'DoNotExpandEnvironmentNames')

powershell -NoProfile -Command ^
    "(Get-Item -Path HKCU:\Environment).GetValue('PATH', $null, 'DoNotExpandEnvironmentNames')"